blog posts can serve a number of different purposes obviously the main focus needs to
be using your blog to educate your readers so they feel more confident about making a buying decision
this is why one of the oldest adages in content marketing is that you need to write for people
first and think about seo second while it's a nice gesture to constantly educate your audience
for free eventually you need to see an roi or you won't be able to afford your block for very long
that's why it's imperative that you learn how to write seo friendly blog posts after all
if the posts don't attract traffic they won't really help anyone in this post i'll give you
nine helpful tips to generate organic traffic with blog posts these are the same tips i use with the
blog and the same ones that we recommend to our clients tip number one start with your keywords
in the classic film the sound of music julie andrews begins her now famous song del rey me
with some pretty sage advice let's start at the very beginning a very good place to start
beginning the process by brainstorming and researching the proper keywords is vital to
your post success however don't feel like you have to start from absolutely nowhere a good strategy
put your target keyword into google to see what kind of articles are currently ranking so you
understand what kind of article that google thinks is best for such queries and be intentional in
where you place these keywords throughout include them in four main places the title of the post
the main headings of your post within the content of the post and of course in the conclusion now
knowing which target keywords to include in your posts and where to place them is important but
not enough a couple of words of caution for you not all keywords are a good fit for blogs keep in
mind that some simply aren't good because google doesn't see them as one that you need to use if
you're in doubt google search a potential keyword first to see if blogs show up second resist the
temptation to keyword stuff while keywords help google understand what your blog post is about
too many keywords tell google that you're trying to game the system and google really really
hates when you try to game the system to avoid keyword stuffing don't add keywords in the text
more repetition does not mean better rankings only use them when they naturally fit
if i'm struggling for instance i consult the google keyword tool or simrush to search for
alternatives or i can always just rearrange the keyword i could say the best app for shopify or
the app i like best for shopify as long as it doesn't change the actual meaning of the phrase
feel free to mix up your keyword terms tip number two base your outline on what's working for your
competition first and foremost there is no one best blog structure for seo
but you do have some clear options according to research done by conductor
the five most popular blog post structures for seo are first listicles then reader addressing
then how to for instance how to lose 10 pounds then normal here's the right way to and finally
questions what's the best way to ultimately the best approach to structure your blog post is
once again by going to the first page of google for your keyword and seeing what your competitors
are doing you could also consider using specific numbers like 117 ideas instead of 100 ideas
or take it even further with something like 117 and a half ideas creativity and uniqueness are key
so how do you make them stand out your goal is not simply to recycle what the competition is doing
stand out give readers information they can't get elsewhere use this as an opportunity both to use
keywords and to pull real life examples like case studies you could also search online for
data or other examples to bring something unique to the table doing so will help you organically
earn backlinks other sites are more likely to link to yours if you offer something they can't
reference by linking to competitors tip number three optimize the word count of your blog post
one of the most common questions is how do i know how many words my post should be
according to a data from hubspot the ideal link for an seo friendly blog post is between 2 100
words and 2 400 words you should check the first page of google to see what your competitors are
doing and at the very least beat their average word count length whenever possible try using more
words than everyone else you might also wonder what if my blog post is too long for readers fear
not as far as seo is concerned there's no such thing as too long when it comes to blog posts
43 of your audience is only going to skim your blogs in the first place regardless of
word count just make sure your post will compare favorably to your competition on the first page
tip number four write for readers who scan the other half of knowing what to write is
knowing how to format it in a nutshell keep your paragraphs short large bodies of text are visually
unappealing they make the reader think that it's going to be a lot of work to get to an entire post
so cut it up to make it more palatable for the people doing so also helps the majority of your
readers who will probably access your page on a mobile device see your points more clearly
you can never go wrong with mixing up your formatting molding underlining bulletin
key ideas these all help your posts become more scannable simple cleared
unique sometimes it's truly as simple as do great me tip number five make good use of header tags
to help you in your quest to keep your blog scannable also take advantage of header and
subheader tags to keep your content separated into concise paragraphs
these make it easier for those scanning visitors of yours to understand what your article is about
and thus why it's worth reading there are six types of headers that range from h1 to h6
h1 tags go at the top of your blog these are usually your titles
h2 tags are the main subheaders these will cut your blogs into more manageable sections
use as many of those as you want h3 tags are used to subdivide the content that falls under
one single h2 and of course h4 h5 and h6 tags continue this subdividing don't stress here either
content management systems like wordpress and shopify make it incredibly easy to turn
text into these types of headers you can also use your headers to gain seo points
beyond making your page more easily scannable headers optimize your blog posts for seo
google's search engine crawlers will review your post and pay special attention to this information
i usually recommend that clients put their main keyword in their h1 and at least one of their
h2s as long as headers are compelling and entice the visitor to keep reading i'm happy tip six use
links to show google where you're getting your information from now if you want your blog post
to attract consistent traffic from google you need to show the search engine that your blogs
are dependable resources their users can trust so how do you do that well one way is to credit other
websites when you use them for information using outbound links tells google that not only are you
giving your audience credible content but also that you're so dedicated to helping your readers
that you're willing to share other great resources with them for even better results use anchor text
that helps google understand the context in which you're referencing the resource you can
also interlink to pages on your own website making it easy for readers to find more information and
increasing traffic on your previous pages now a couple of rules to remember for these anchor texts
you have to remember these several companies break them all the time first avoid vague
descriptors like click here or single words like blog that don't really give google a lot to go on
and second don't keyword stuff here either because google pays special attention to anchor text it
can be tempting to use keywords to help the pages you're interlinking to the same rule applies here
only use keywords if they're a natural fit tip 7 using images and videos now as you've
probably heard a picture is worth a thousand words but it turns out that's not a cliche
in fact the human eye processes images sixty thousand times faster than it does text you still
must be mindful of which image you use in your posts using two to three optimized images can help
you establish credibility and make people remember your articles longer to fully optimize these
images you must use alt text or alternative text a type of code that describes an image on a web page
this wording isn't visible on the page itself but because search engines cannot really read images
they rely on alt text to determine what the image is in a way your images become similar
to anchor text so only use them when it's natural as well be cautious with keyword stuffing here too
google doesn't want people to use images as an easy opportunity to pack their posts with keywords
that the majority of the audience will never see and finding the perfect image for your blog post
has zero seo value if you can't tell google what it is as a bonus proper use of these images gives
you a foot in the door to google's image rankings this is no small feat considering google images is
actually the world's second largest search engine it's responsible for 20 of all online searches
putting it ahead of youtube bing and other search engines combined so a picture isn't just worth 60
000 words if you know how to optimize for seo it can be worth plenty of clicks too
tip 8 use successful posts to boost your new posts rankings
this is another way to use internal linking to improve your blog post rankings
if one of your current posts is already ranking well you can link to your new post from it
doing so tells google here's another reliable blog post it's an easy way to
start off your new post on the right foot online marketing extraordinaire neil patel recommends
conducting this kind of interlinking strategy once every 5-10 posts now even if you don't have any
blog posts that are currently ranking well i'd recommend you still make time for interlinking
a well interlinked site makes for a better user experience easier to navigate and that's always
good for seo and last but certainly not least tip number nine update your post regularly nothing is
written in stone online as online marketers this is a huge advantage for us we can always go back
and make changes to revise literally means to see again and to revision what's possible
if you're a more experienced blogger and want to dust off some of your old posts
there's no need to reinvent the wheel instead reviewing old content should be about looking for
new ways to improve its rankings has it dropped its rank since the last time you checked if so
try to figure out why google is now favoring another post maybe you've simply learned something
more about the topic since you published it or new information has come out that would complement the
original work whatever the case part of making a blog seo friendly is making sure it remains
accurate and helpful the moment it loses those two traits for whatever reason expect google to
start treating it accordingly once your new or revised blog post has had a few months
see if there's anything you can do to improve its rankings the best thing marketers can do
to rank blog posts is to remember one simple maxim practice makes progress do not be afraid
to create numerous seo friendly blogs again and again and even again these days you probably
won't rank a blog post on your first try if you don't already have a track record of doing so
but keep optimizing them like we discussed above and you'll eventually taste success
of course if you have any questions about writing blog posts so that google and people absolutely
love them feel free to contact us reach out to us if this was helpful give us a thumbs
up like our page and subscribe to our content until then so long farewell a fedeson goodbye
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